Join us at the intersection of biotech and business as we focus on funding strategies, investor expectations, and how to position a biotech venture for success. Industry experts, successful entrepreneurs, and investors will provide details on securing capital, crafting a compelling pitch, and understanding what makes a startup stand out in the competitive biotech space. Connect with investors, founders, and professionals shaping the future of biotech.

Ticket price includes light bites and non-alcoholic beverages.

Program

6:00 p.m. – 6:45 p.m.  Check-in and networking
6:45 p.m. – 7:45 p.m.  Panel discussion
7:45 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.  Q&A and networking

Speaker Bios

Bonnie Anderson, Cofounder, Chairwoman, and Chief Executive Officer of PinkDx, Inc.

Bonnie cofounded and serves as Chairwoman and Chief Executive Officer of PinkDx, an early-stage diagnostics company focused on addressing unmet medical needs for women. Bonnie is a veteran diagnostics industry leader with a strong track record of building successful businesses in novel markets. She cofounded Veracyte, a global diagnostics company, where she served as Chief Executive Officer from 2008 to 2021. During her tenure, Bonnie raised over $1 billion in private and public funding, launched market-leading diagnostic tests that are transforming patient care in multiple disease areas, and established Veracyte’s strategic vision for offering its tests to physicians and their patients globally. Prior to Veracyte, Bonnie provided strategic consulting services to venture capital firms and early-stage businesses following 18 years in leadership positions at Beckman Coulter. At Beckman Coulter, she led the company’s “intrapreneurial” start-up division, focused on the emerging immuno-oncology field. Bonnie serves on the boards of Bruker Corporation, DNA Script and the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences. Additionally, she is President of the Coalition for 21st Century Medicine, representing the genomic diagnostics industry to federal and state-level policymakers and regulators, and previously served on the boards of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) and Castle Biosciences. Bonnie has received numerous awards for her industry leadership, including Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People in Business,” Fierce Pharma’s “Fiercest Women in Life Sciences,” and the San Francisco Business Times’ “Bay Area Most Admired CEOs.” Bonnie graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania with a BS in medical technology and was honored with a Distinguished Alumni award in 2012 and an honorary Doctor of Science degree in 2023.

Ameena El-Bibany, Investor and Board Member, Moderator

Ameena was previously a partner at ARTIS Ventures, sat on the boards of Range Biotechnologies and Activ Surgical, and was an investor in Inceptive Nucleics, among other companies. She has received recognition by Fortune as one of 11 VCs behind the hottest health tech deals and by the San Francisco Business Times as a 40 Under 40 honoree. Prior to joining ARTIS, she spent 5 years in early stage venture capital as a Partner at Rising Tide VC, where she built and led the firm’s health and bio investment practice and invested in companies including Precision NanoSystems (acquired by Danaher), Apama Medical (acquired by Boston Scientific), Evonetix, Exo Imaging, Loop Genomics (acquired by Element Biosciences), Aspect Biosystems, Atia Vision and others. Focusing on the intersection of science and technology, she has invested in and worked with companies spanning personalized medicine, synthetic biology, computational biology, and more. She is passionate about bridging academia and industry to create lasting impact. Ameena began her career in R&D, working at Novozymes, a world leader in bio innovation, developing synthetic biology approaches to increase yields through industrial scale up. She is a recipient of multiple competitive grants funded by the National Science Foundation for research done at the California Academy of Sciences and the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, as well as an awardee of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program. She has conducted research across DNA damage and repair in longevity, microbiome diversity, and stem cell engineering. Ameena holds a BS in genetics from the University of California Davis.

Nikole Kimes, PhD, Founder & CEO of Siolta Therapeutics

Nikole is the co-founder and CEO of Siolta Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotech company developing live biotherapeutic products (LBPs) aimed at addressing chronic inflammatory conditions with high unmet medical needs. Siolta’s growing pipeline focuses on infant and women’s health, particularly targeting IgE-mediated allergic diseases and infectious diseases. Under Dr. Kimes' leadership, Siolta is advancing novel microbiome-based therapies to transform patient care and address the underlying cause of disease. Dr. Kimes' entrepreneurial journey began with groundbreaking research in Dr. Susan Lynch’s lab at UCSF, where she co-developed the foundational science behind Siolta’s innovative approach to immune modulation via the microbiome. As CEO, she leads a talented team of experts in microbiology, immunology, bioinformatics, clinical operations, diagnostics, and manufacturing. In addition to her role at Siolta, Dr. Kimes is the chairman of the Microbiome Therapeutics Innovation Group (MTIG), a coalition focused on advancing FDA-approved microbiome therapeutics for better health outcomes across diverse patient populations.

Helen Siaw, Senior Associate at Aditum Bio

Helen is a Senior Associate on the Investment team at Aditum Bio, where she focuses on company creation and portfolio business development. Before Aditum, Helen was an Associate at Mission BioCapital, an early-stage life science venture fund, investing in Seed and Series A companies. She also took on operational roles at Mission BioCapital’s portfolio companies, as Head of Operations at Ribonaut Therapeutics and BD at Epiodyne, Inc. Helen holds a PhD in chemistry from Emory University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington.

Dana Watt, Partner at Breakout Ventures

Dana is a Partner at Breakout Ventures, where she drives the firm’s seed investment strategy and supports company founders as they achieve commercialization milestones. She has led due diligence on notable Breakout investments, including Canaery, Phantom Neuro, Vitra Labs, and Passkey Therapeutics. Dana earned her doctorate in cellular and molecular neurosciences at Washington University in St. Louis; her biomedical research culminated in her co-founding a molecular diagnostics spinout company. Dana’s involvement in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in St. Louis continued as she joined the university's entrepreneurship center to institutionalize support for SBIR/STTR-funded spinouts. Before joining Breakout in 2021, Dana was a Senior Investment Associate for the strategic healthcare venture fund Ascension Ventures. Dana has nurtured a robust professional network through her mentorship activities and engagement as a Kauffman Fellow.

Alice Zheng, MD, Partner at Foreground Capital

Alice has been a women’s health enthusiast throughout her career spanning global health, clinical medicine, and the private sector. She is currently a Co-founder and Partner at Foreground Capital, a venture capital firm investing in early-stage women’s health start-ups. Previously, she was a Principal at Foreground’s precursor funds at RH Capital, where she and the team built one of the largest dedicated venture capital portfolios in women’s health. At Foreground Capital, she continues to manage RH Capital funds and serves as a board director for Seven Starling and Millie and as a board observer for AOA and Cofertility. Previously, Alice was a women’s health practice leader and management consultant at McKinsey & Company, where she published foundational research on women’s health. Earlier in her career, she trained as a physician with a focus on women’s health and worked in global public health in East Africa and Asia. She has also been a patient in many women’s health areas, including infertility, abortion, and difficult pregnancies. Alice holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an MD/MPH from the University of Michigan, where she was a Dean's Merit Scholar. She has been recognized as a VC Rising Star and 30 under 40 Healthcare, with her profile featured in Business Insider, Michigan Medicine, and more. She holds advising and mentoring roles with multiple women’s health accelerators and summits and also serves on the investment advisory board of the Michigan Biomedical Venture Fund.

Pricing Information

• Members: $35
• Student Members: $25
• Non-members*: $50
• Student Non-members: $35

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Maximum Capacity

100

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